Trinity Rescue Kit 3.4:
easier and better
than ever before!

Get a physical copy at Osdisc

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues. Since version 3.4 it has an easy to use scrollable text menu that allows anyone who masters a keyboard and some English to perform maintenance and repair on a computer, ranging from password resetting over disk cleanup to virus scanning

It is possible to boot TRK in three different ways:
-as a bootable CD which you can burn yourself from a downloadable isofile or a self burning Windows executable
-from a USB stick/disk (optionally also a fixed disk), installable from Windows or from the bootable TRK cd (which is easier and safer)
-from network over PXE: you start 1 TRK from CD or USB and you run all other computers from that one over the network without modifying anything to you local network.
Ever since version 3.4, TRK has received an easy to use textmenu but has equally kept the commandline.

Here 's a sumup of some of the most important features, new and old:

-easily reset windows passwords with the improved winpass tool
-simple and easy menu interface
-5 different virusscan products integrated in a single uniform commandline with online update capability
-full ntfs write support thanks to ntfs-3g
-winclean, a utility that cleans up all sorts of unnecessary temporary files on your computer.
-clone computers over the network via multicast.
-wide range of hardware support (kernel 2.6.35 )
-contributed backup utility called "pi", to automate local machine backups
-easy script to find and mount all local filesystems
-self update capability to include and update all virusscanners + local changes you made to TRK.
-full proxyserver support.
-run a samba fileserver (windows like filesharing)
-run a ssh server
-recovery and undeletion of files with utilities and procedures
-recovery of lost partitions
-evacuation of dying disks
-full read/write and rpm support
-UTF-8 international character support (select keyboard language from the scrollable textmenu at startup)
-2 rootkit detection uitilities
-most software updated to recent versions
-literally thousands of changes and bugfixes since version 3.3
-elaborated documentation, including manpages for all commands (also TRK 's own)

I dare to say it: this is the BEST TRK EVER!
It is higly recommended you leave alone older versions of TRK and download the latest 3.4, except for maybe some (quite) older machines with limited resources.

The idea behind Trinity Rescue Kit

Back in 2001, I had this great bootable dos cd I created, packed with all great utilities for offline PC operations called "The Vault".
Unfortunately, the Vault consisted for 90% of software you should pay for. So distributing it in a legal way was certainly no option and I 'm not the guy that wants to spend his time in maintaining something that 's illegal anyway.
So I brewed on the idea of creating a free bootable Linux CD containing all available free tools that can help you in any way of rescueing your Windows installation.
And eventually, this is how far it has gotten now, with thousands of hours of work gone into it. All this for you, for free.
Trinity Rescue Kit is based on binaries and scripts from several other distributions, like Timo 's Rescue CD, Mandriva 2005 and Fedora Core 3 and 4, as well as many original source packages and tools from other distros.
Startup procedure and methods, several scripts and concept is completely selfmade or at least heavily adapted.

Here 's a few testimonies from people who have used it before:

Name: Cliff C.
Subject: Trinity Rescue Kit - Thank you
Message:
Just wanted to say thanks for putting this Kit together. It literally saved us from
weeks of rebuilding when our secretary's box went down.
With warm regards,
Cliff
Name: Barb N.
Subject: Trinity Rescue Kit - Thank You
Message:
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
My son was playing around with his new laptop and created a password that he could
not remember - You saved me a trip to town, quite a distance away and you've made me
a Hero in my sons eyes. I can't thank you enough.
I don't currently have a paypal account but I plan to set one up and show you my
appreciation that way.
You do great work - God will Bless You for sharing your talent.

From: Chris K.
Subject: Trinity Rocks

As many people may have already told you this disk has saved my butt. I manage the IT department for a small company which means I do a lot of hands on work as well as administration and we have a high turnover rate. The people that we work with are all independent agents that bring their own computers and many times the computer is in pretty sad shape and of course they don't know the admin password. Anyway, I have
tried many different rescue discs and this by far has been the easiest and quickest and most effective one yet. I've sent you a donation, not much but what I can afford right now. My only comment, keep it small and fast. I'm not afraid of the command line, please don't cave to those who are.

From: Bill
Subject: Thanks for TRK

Hello Harakiri,
I sincerely want to thank you for the Trinity Rescue Kit. I think it is a very useful tool for computer maintenance.
I'm afraid I can't donate, but I am a student and I haven't got much money.

Best Wishes

Massimo

From: Flabdablet Subject: TRK is my preferred Winbox imaging tool

I mainly use TRK for imaging Windows boxes in the schools where I work. I find it suits me much, much better than proprietary solutions such as Ghost and Trueimage.

...
Many thanks to harakiri for making such excellent tools available.